Changes In Examinations

Michael Gove is leaving no stone unturned as he attempts to take Britain's education system back 50 years. I hear nasty rumours of a return of coursework to mathematics, which really will be a backwards step in my view. Maths coursework was the closest a maths teacher ever got to dentistry, and despite it giving the lower ability a chance to get a higher grade because they weren't great at exams, the ressurrection of maths coursework will do no-one any favours other than the students who essentially copy their work.

Those who would like to see coursework return will say that it will be controlled assessment, meaning that students won't be allowed to take their work away and will have a set amount of time to complete the task. What they don't tell you is that the students spend hours trying to remember what their teacher has told them to write and the topic of the controlled assessment is no surprise at all as it is known well in advance by both teacher and students. With the pressure to get results with all students (even those who don't deserve them) the temptation to dictate the answer to a class must be great.

The marking and "moderation" of coursework is a time consuming waste of time compared to what the teacher could be doing with the time in the form of planning and preparation. It takes hours and is essentially a case of trying to justify the highest grade possible, even though most bits of coursework are total rubbish due to the lack of any relevance to anyone's potential work-life.

Anyway, enough of coursework - hopefully Gove will be caught in an uncompromising position, doing something he shouldn't before he gets too far with his changes. The problem is that the guy seems so devoid of any concept of reality that he won't realise that he should resign. He currently doesn't realise that he's loathed by everyone in education, so I don't hold out much hope.

There are whisperings of four subjects being made tougher: English Literature, Maths, History and Geography. This seems reasonable as long as the fact that the exams are getting trickier and so therefore the percentage of passes will go down is taken into account when teachers are being thrashed by senior management in August/September following the publication of results and league tables.

I can foresee what is likely to happen though, as this sort of policy/idea comes around everyfew years: the exam gets tougher for a year or two until the opposition party claim that the worse marks show a drop in standards due to government policy, and exams get easier to show that standards have, in fact, risen. In the meantime, teachers will get it in the neck.

What really winds me up is that 99% of government education policy is geared towards one of these things:

1. Winning your vote.
2. Making their political opponents look silly.
3. Trying to move up the political food chain.

The other 1% is for the benefit of the young people of Britain.